Chapter 2
KORMAC
“Who’s there?” I called.
Gods, I wasn’t in the mood for a fight right now. I wanted sleep, to rest my head after another day of this hell. Especially after actually smiling at the prince, listening to his whining. Enjoying his fucking story.
Don’t be horrible about him…
Laughter, mocking me out there in the dark. A low growl rumbled in my chest.
“Kormac?” the prince whispered.
“Wait,” I bit out then repeated the word gently.
My grip on my weapon tightened as my frustration spiked.
Rustling. Snapping twigs. More laughing.
Seelie soldiers coming for their fugitive prince? Unseelie coming for their fugitive human? Had Lasair caught up with us? Had she found a way to get me out of this?
Yes! By killing you! That’s how you’ll be free.
I will never leave him…
I winced at the thinking of being apart from Valance, at losing him.
Hellpiss to this!
I braced myself, sword ready to crush skulls. These weren’t seelie or unseelie soldiers. They wouldn’t behave this like. Well, unless they were using some new tactics to scare us before capture.
Somehow, I really doubted that.
These sounds were from something else, some creature about to wish they’d bothered a different campfire.
A shape in the trees. A small shadow the size of a child. Then another. Not soldiers.
“Show yourself,” I demanded.
The laughter grated on my nerves, stoking my anger.
“Cowards,” Valance added.
Not helpful.
“Cowards, are we?” a female voice drifted from the now three shapes. “How funny.”
That’s it, laugh.
“If you’re not—”
I held a hand up to silence the prince before he made the situation worse.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. “You don’t have to show yourselves. We don’t have to meet.”
“Oh, but I want to meet,” a male voice spoke this time. “I’m really looking forward to breaking bread together.”
What did that mean?
“We’ll move on,” I tried. “If we’ve stumbled into your territory, then we apologize. Let us gather our things, and we’ll be on our way.”
This was Rosestar Forest, so really Valance’s territory.
If only he still held some clout.
“Where is the fun in that?” the female voice asked. I wasn’t sure if it was the same as the first one.
“We just want an easy night,” I said.
“Boring.”
“Boring.”
“So boring.”
“Yawn!”
Four voices for four shapes, a blend of male and female. Then more laughter.
Horrible realization dropped into my stomach. Heavy and cold, my skin rife with goosebumps.
Goblins.
Fuck.
“We have to run,” I whispered to the prince.
“As if we didn’t know you were going to say that,” a female said.
Seven shapes now.
Goblins were the only species with the natural ability to read minds. What else had they been listening to?
“Goblins…” Valance said, catching up.
More shapes appeared around the edge of the clearing, shadows in the trees. A chorus of laughter rang around us.
Surrounded. I studied the tree line for gaps, for exits. There. A spot uncovered. Hellpiss! I was thinking, giving off the details.
The gap closed with more figures.
Trapped.
We never should’ve stopped in this clearing.
The prince’s fingers danced in a rippling rhythm. Magic bristled from him, tickling my face. Seed magic. The trees responded to him. I saw branches twist and bend, become snake-like. Saw the forest floor move as if alive with armies of ants, heard the rustling of the ground.
What would he unleash on these hellpissers? He’d used this magic on me before, and it wasn’t pleasant.
Laughter. The goblins didn’t care.
A branch lashed out as quick as a whip. Struck a shadow. More laughter. Valance grunted, turning his hands palm-side up. More branches, the earth between us and the trees shaking.
I watched him, his dark eyes nothing short of scary. Sweat beaded his brow, the magic clearly a lot of effort. But there was determination there, too. As if he’d make sure we got out of here in one piece because being preyed on by goblins meant one thing.
A slow death. Eaten alive.
Two things, then?
God, he was beautiful. So slender, his pale features perfect. Pretty. His silver-violet hair hung around his face full of dirt but still managed to be alluring for curious fingers wanting to dive into those tresses.
Damn. Why me? Why bind me of all people to this fae?
Branches whipped around us. The goblins laughed, even as the magically-influenced wood whacked them down, grabbed them, and flung them away.
A familiar sound. I reacted just in time to deflect an arrow. It pinged off my blade.
“Fuck,” I growled, meeting another before it hit.
Valance upped his attack, tremors in the ground. Roads of churning earth erupted outward from him, hurtling toward the goblins. More of the hellpissers showed up, none of them coming out of the trees. None of them running from the forest attacking them.
Only laughed and fired arrows.
What in the gods’ name was so funny?
An arrow hit me in the leg, to the side of my shin.
Unlike the prince, my armor wasn’t fancy and made by the elves.
Another one of the old woman’s provisions had been these clothes—the ones we’d been wearing when we’d first met.
When the prince used seed magic on me. It was almost like we’d gone back in time.
Him in his black leather-but-like-steel armor, me in the shabby and crude brown leather and grubby breeches and world-weary boots.
Strange for her to give so much, yet not upgrade my protection. But then, where did you draw a line with these things? Probably some rule to not give me too much of an edge. Wait and see if we made it north.
The pain in my leg made itself known, screaming. I pushed through it, deflecting more arrows, taking another to the shoulder. Another hit the ground by my left boot.
I roared, going for the charge. “Fucking goblins!”
A wave of nausea tripped me. My feet tangled together, and I went down hard, crashing into the dirt. My sword flew out of my hand, my hands scraping the cold forest floor.
“Kormac!” Valance cried, then gasped.
In the grip of a rising sickness, I twisted to see the arrow in the side of his neck. Tiny, more like a dart. Brown in the light of the fire.
Good!
Not good!
I pushed myself up to my knees, my stomach lurching. “Hellpi—” Acidic bubbles burst, and I vomited up the bread and rabbit.
Laughter.
“No…” I tried to get up again, retching. More vomit exploded from me.
“Kormac…”
The prince collapsed to his knees, reaching for the log.
“Danu…” he breathed and retched himself.
The magic in the forest lost its grip, the trees becoming solid and the earth calming down.
Laughter. A celebration.
I had to get up. No fucking rejoicing for goblins. Death to them. Kill the little monsters, roast them like the rabbit…
Up on one knee, the forest spinning. I could do this. I could save us both. Just push up, stand, and charge.
I crashed back to the ground.
“Shit…” I said, sounding unwell. Gods, I felt unwell. My stomach was on fire, my head dizzy as if I’d been spinning in one spot for too long.
My dad used to spin me as a child. Take me by the hands and spin, my legs flying behind me.
So much fun, so dizzying. Back when life seemed as simple as a spin with Dad, when there wasn’t this prince and soul bonds and a dead Ren.
Where I lived in Riverleaf of Autumn, miles away from this damned place.
“Kormac…” Valance again.
He needed me. I felt him through our bond. I had to get up or crawl to him. Make sure he wasn’t hurt or dying. Oh, gods! Not death. Not for my prince.
Not my—
My prince. Protect him always. Tend to him. Be near him. Save him.
“Valance…” I tried, then lost the contents of my stomach again.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the forest ceiling and the stars beyond. What did I do? Some poison ran through my veins, leaving ice in my limbs. I wasn’t sure I could even try and get back onto my front now, or even lift my head.
“Hellpiss…” I whispered, losing all sensation in my body by the second. “Fucking hellpiss.”
Get up!
A face appeared, round and lumpy like molding clay in the hands of an amateur.
Her sickly green forehead was covered in bumps, one cheek swollen, the other sunken.
And the shape of her chin resembled a triangle.
Dry brown hair sat in short, tight curls around her head.
But none of that mattered. What did were the three rows of sharp, pointed teeth in her wide mouth.
Teeth perfect for eating a man with.
Damn.
I woke to the sight of roots and lanterns.
When had I fallen asleep?
Tree roots twisted through a ceiling of packed earth. Lanterns hung from those thick appendages on black chains, candles burning in the glass and metal things. I blinked at them, trying to work out what’d happened.
Goblins.
Poison.
From a goblin? Only elves knew how to make poisons through herbology.
Vomit.
Yes. Poison.
Vomit.
The goblin looming over me.
Oh, fuck.
Somewhere along the line, I’d blacked out and ended up here. On my back. Facing a strange ceiling under the forest. Because it couldn’t be anything else. Tree roots were—
I tried to speak, to fire a curse. My lips didn’t move. My limbs were heavy, completely cut off from me. Only my eyes moved.
Fuck! Those goblins had poisoned me and dragged me into their underground hell hole. Valance too. Gods! Where was the prince?
Movement. Clinking. Cutlery? Crockery?
We were heading for death by goblin hunger.
Not today. I’d find a solution to this. We didn’t spend seven days on the road to end up as the main course of a goblin banquet.
A fist curled around my heart, crushing it hard. Valance was nearby—the soul bond told me so. But he suffered. He needed me. I felt his anguish. As his protector, making it right was my job.
Now to think of something. I wasn’t a deep thinker or a scholar by any standard, only when the time came to survive, which wasn’t the same thing. More like how to cross that dangerous place over there or survive a bear attack.
Survive this! Come on! Think!